The Esquire/ESPN E:60 Little-Big Story of the Week:Matthew Stafford, the Promise and the Broken Window

As part of a collaboration with ESPN, Esquire.com's The Culture Blog will be previewing a new episode of the Worldwide Leader's award-winning news-magazine show, E:60, each week throughout the NFL season. On Tuesday night's episode (airing at 7 Eastern), Rachel Nichols delves into a much-hyped football talent trying to make good on everyone's expectations of him (Monday night's game notwithstanding). Herein, more on Matthew Stafford as a precocious five-year-old, in Rachel's own words. —Eds.

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There are two stories that show just how crazy Matthew Stafford's football aptitude was when he was little.

The first story happened when Matthew was four or five years old growing up outside Dallas and he was watching a Cowboys game with his dad. A couple of people were over and a play didn't happen as it was supposed to. After it was finished, Matthew just looked at his dad and said, "The tackle didn't pull." And his dad said, "What?" And he repeated it: "The tackle didn't pull." Sure enough, John Madden then came on TV and said, "The nose tackle didn't do his thing." And five-year-old Matthew had said it before Madden could say it onscreen.

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Along with his football IQ, he also had a strong arm from a very early age. His sister, Paige, was telling us that she and Matthew would toss the football or baseball around outside, and Matthew would always try to throw as hard as he could, wanting to throw it through a tree or snap off a branch. One time, he rocketed a baseball and it bounced off a tree and shattered one of the windows in their house. Both he and his sister looked at each other and knew they were in trouble. They walked inside the house and saw the baseball and shattered window lying on the floor, and their dad walked in at the same time. Paige said she looked up and expected her dad to start yelling. Instead, he looked up and said, "What happened?" Matthew owned up to it, but their dad just looked back at him and said, "Wow! That must have been a really hard throw. Good job!"

It's stories like those that exemplify two intangibles that separated Matthew from other kids when he was growing up. With Matthew, it was never about triumphing over tough odds. It was more about how a kid — whom everyone knew would grow up to become special — could fulfill everyone's expectations.